Delay: I don't see it increasing dramatically here in the SF Bay Area.

Meh, I make economy gaffes as bad as President Obama. FTFM

Stuipd woman still has a cellphone and satelite TV. Need a job? Here's a clue: try working at Target or Burger King. They're both regularly hiring. Pays just fine until you can find something better. Making $64k as an administrator? Biatch, you're overpaid. And how did you get to be 62, making $64k/year, and have no assets to your name? Woman is just starting to get in touch with reality.

So, lemme get this straight: A tiny fraction of the 60+ generation has to deal with what 90+ percent of the 20-35 crowd has to deal with, and it's a news article.

Fark off, boomers. Eat a bag of dicks and die...

NewportBarGuy: It's going to be an interesting few decades, and by "interesting" I think we'll revisit the 70's my father told me about.

We have absolutely no idea how we're going to make this Service Economy as profitable as union wages were for several decades. Not even trying to make this a union thread, just saying. We've got to figure out how to create sustainable jobs that pay well and I've not heard anyone with any kind of realistic idea for doing so. Tax cuts and Green Jobs are nice buzz words, but we have a systemic employment problem and we're too scared to fully address the issue of people working longer, younger people having to wait longer to move in or up, and what the f*ck do we do with high school educated and college drop-out workers?

Technology and automation have relegated many of them to $7/hr jobs and that pay about the same as collecting any kind of state or federal assistance. Hell, even more if you deduct for child care or similar costs.

Look... We put our heads together when we needed to and developed the atom bomb and the Apollo program. If we put that same kind of effort, get our best labor economists, industrialists, bankers together for a NO BS honest assessment of where we are and where we need to go, we can fix this. Executive compensation is going to have to trickle back down to increase workers salaries so they can purchase more and spur hiring in the lower-tier jobs. We're going to have to do this with the cunning power of math. More people with a little more money creating more demand. That payroll tax cut is a great example, but we have to add more things to it, and offer more incentives to spur spending.

We have two choices. Government spending or consumer spending. We have to increase one or both. We can't cut and save our way out of a decline. Nor should we solely focus on government spending, especially with a yearly $1 trillion revenue shortfall.

We're all going to have to compromise on whatever strongly held principles we have on taxe ...

Just wait until the robot revolution happens and all of the fast food and lower level service economy jobs are filled by robots.

Two ideas: 20 hr work week and beef up the cummunity college system.

NewWorldDan: Stuipd woman still has a cellphone and satelite TV. Need a job? Here's a clue: try working at Target or Burger King. They're both regularly hiring. Pays just fine until you can find something better. Making $64k as an administrator? Biatch, you're overpaid. And how did you get to be 62, making $64k/year, and have no assets to your name? Woman is just starting to get in touch with reality.

shiat happens. shiat happens all the time. $64K per year for an executive assistant with over 30 years experience is not overpaid, seeing as how this woman was likely running the office for her boss who was probably paid five to ten times what she got paid.

On the other hand:



Granny porn, anyone?

Baby boomers won't willingly retire because they have no savings and social security isn't enough to live on. This limits career advancement for Gen-Xers keeping them out of upper management. Since the Xers can't move up, the lower-level stuff doesn't come open for the Ys and today's college grads.

In ten or 15 years when the boomers start to die off in droves we'll see the funeral industry boom. It will be a great time to operate a crematorium. Lots of housing in good older neighborhoods will flood the market. I'm not sure if this will crash the housing market in the older neighborhoods or if normal people will abandon the craptasic suburbs and move close to town. The lower-quality suburbs become the new slum. The only way to save the housing market is find a new source of buyers. Perhaps via immigration.

Once the boomers take the glut off the labor market salaries will inch upward then the rest of what remains of American industry will flee to Asia and the emerging markets in Africa and South America.

lohphat: jso2897: moefuggenbrew: It's Bush's fault

Depends on which Bush you're talking about. Back in 1988, Bush Sr. said "I would like to see this nation's wealth in fewer, righter, tighter hands".
No one could reasonably contend that that has not been achieved.

Citation please?
Lazy. Here's one of hundreds.
Link
Last time I will waste on someone's denial of common knowledge. Not even the most conservative legitimate economists deny this. They just differ as to whom they blame.

TheWhoppah: Baby boomers won't willingly retire because they have no savings and social security isn't enough to live on. This limits career advancement for Gen-Xers keeping them out of upper management. Since the Xers can't move up, the lower-level stuff doesn't come open for the Ys and today's college grads.

In ten or 15 years when the boomers start to die off in droves we'll see the funeral industry boom. It will be a great time to operate a crematorium. Lots of housing in good older neighborhoods will flood the market. I'm not sure if this will crash the housing market in the older neighborhoods or if normal people will abandon the craptasic suburbs and move close to town. The lower-quality suburbs become the new slum. The only way to save the housing market is find a new source of buyers. Perhaps via immigration.

Once the boomers take the glut off the labor market salaries will inch upward then the rest of what remains of American industry will flee to Asia and the emerging markets in Africa and South America.

FTA:
She is discouraged by what she sees as youth-obsessed employers. "We're already has-beens, which is so sad," Ms. Keany said. "Some of us are still pretty productive."

I read the article. You know, I almost felt sorry for her, but at this point, fark off. Us thirty-somethings are waiting around in crap entry-level jobs and can't get promoted because you damn Boomers think you're so "productive" that you won't bow out and retire.

It's not my fault that you failed to save for retirement (she went through her savings and retirement in a few years???). I hope you enjoyed the lifestyle that "not saving" let you enjoy. Now enjoy living in your trailer and eating dog food.

TheWhoppah: Baby boomers won't willingly retire because they have no savings and social security isn't enough to live on. This limits career advancement for Gen-Xers keeping them out of upper management. Since the Xers can't move up, the lower-level stuff doesn't come open for the Ys and today's college grads.

Or, in other words... THIS

ladyfortuna: "barely getting by on little more than $1,082 a month"

Lady, I don't even GROSS that much on my full time ebay thing some months, although it's been getting better. Don't know what kind of debt she's in for her residence or whatever, but she could be far worse off. And I hate being the person to say that, since I'm moderate liberal and support keeping social security as is.

I dunno, I took a crappy delivery job here for a while since there aren't many jobs I am qualified for locally (husband's job is great so I agreed to move here). After I had to have surgery and be out of work, and the job was really bugging me anyway, I set up my own thing. Even though it's been slow going I'm a lot happier. I'm sure some will argue I'm wrong and that it's too hard to get into, but I suspect most people who can't find jobs need to figure out what they're good at and start a small business. Even with the high failure rate, the SBA and some other groups help some and there are tons of learning resources free online now. Mine doesn't have a lot of longevity, but down the line I might start another one after I go back to school this fall.

This lady is single and has no children to sponge off of. For her, Social Security is the sole income. I think she was pretty smart to buy a place to live that cost her only $19K. Unfortunately, she still has lot rent to pay. She's tried moving other places to see if she could go where the jobs are. The truth is that no one wants to hire a 62 year old.

lohphat: Citation please?

I can't find any official source, and the earliest hit on Google is from countercurrents.org:

Then in 1992, when asked what Iran-Contra was really all about, George I replied that it was done for "...the continuous consolidation of money and power into higher, tighter and righter hands."

So if this is the actual quote, it's not even the same message.

And people wonder why I really don't give a crap about living to 100.

Just Another OC Homeless Guy: wait until [...] all of the fast food and lower level service economy jobs are filled by robots.

I thought that was going to happen *just* a bit differently. (The first half of the story, before the obvious Author Tract, is kind of interesting.)

20 hr work week

Not going to happen. If people had more free time, some of them would start thinking and creating political organizations and upsetting the status quo, and the people in power really wouldn't like that.

valkore: lohphat: Citation please?

I can't find any official source, and the earliest hit on Google is from countercurrents.org:

Then in 1992, when asked what Iran-Contra was really all about, George I replied that it was done for "...the continuous consolidation of money and power into higher, tighter and righter hands."

So if this is the actual quote, it's not even the same message.

It seems more sinister to me if it was made regarding Iran-Contra.

45 year old here. 20 years of experience working in IT. Started as a tech, ended as a manager. Unemployed for 4 years after the industry went splat in the 00's. Last year I thought wtf? I have a degree, I'm in good shape. I have experience that younger people have yet to gain. So, I went and wrote my PATI, WCT, and ran my PREP. Failed the PREP, as I couldn't make the 6.5 required on the beat test. So, I trained my ass off for 12 weeks, bumped up my VO2 max, and made the grade next time round. Went and sailed through my BPAD, vision and hearing. And was accepted as a police officer. Long story short. You can make yourself new if you try hard enough. Don't give up. You're only half way there.

atomic-age: valkore: lohphat: Citation please?

I can't find any official source, and the earliest hit on Google is from countercurrents.org:

Then in 1992, when asked what Iran-Contra was really all about, George I replied that it was done for "...the continuous consolidation of money and power into higher, tighter and righter hands."

So if this is the actual quote, it's not even the same message.

It seems more sinister to me if it was made regarding Iran-Contra.

The upward redistribution of wealth was always an intrinsic feature of neoconservative policy. It's not some sneaky, machiavellian plot - it is a sincerely held philosophical belief - that society's wealth is safer and better off in the hands of the elite who are best at accumulating it. It's like a secular version of the "Prosperity Gospel"

"But after losing her job as an executive assistant at an advertising agency in 2008, she searched fruitlessly for full-time work."

While I feel a bit sad for this lady, isn't the purpose of advertising to sell something? You just spent the last four years doing what with your resume?

Gunderson: If there was only some sort of underground economy one could work for...

Fark no. Rather be the part of the country that enforces law and kills off any alternative economies. The alternative economices sabotage the official and proper economy.


TheWhoppah: Baby boomers won't willingly retire because they have no savings and social security isn't enough to live on. This limits career advancement for Gen-Xers keeping them out of upper management. Since the Xers can't move up, the lower-level stuff doesn't come open for the Ys and today's college grads.

Force businesses to hire, define the least competent citizen as more qualified than the immigrant, and count all forms of temporary/contract/contingent help as labor unions for purposes of falling under the Right To Work law.



The only way to save the housing market is find a new source of buyers. Perhaps via immigration.

Or by helping our own be able to afford these houses instead of having a foreign invasion. No thank you - as places that do that, like Hongkouver, displace and take over the city from its lawful and proper citizens. Heavily controlled immigration, where citizens are prioritized over everyone else for jobs and services, would be an acceptable alternative to your non-solution.


Once the boomers take the glut off the labor market salaries will inch upward then the rest of what remains of American industry will flee to Asia and the emerging markets in Africa and South America.
Extraordinary rendition and repatriation can make capital flight a very painful and regretful action for business. It can also be a very pleasing action for US citizens to be part of pulling back the businesses that offshored their jobs. That, and it helps that most countries that receive US jobs can be pushed over easily by the US military.

All of these are desperate measures, but businesses have sabotaged the economy by watching it drown instead of helping it out of the water. Any reasonable measures have only been circumvented.

NewportBarGuy: It's going to be an interesting few decades, and by "interesting" I think we'll revisit the 70's my father told me about.

We have absolutely no idea how we're going to make this Service Economy as profitable as union wages were for several decades.

This right here is why I'm thinking we have a long way to go before housing explodes again. America only works when there's money in most of our hands. Good paying jobs--let's say jobs above 40k--are downright rare unless you are lucky. If we don't change this, which no company will do because they're busy leeching money out of their own businesses, then we're farked. We can do anything under the sun to try to mask this issue, but if you do not pay a fair and increasing wage to back up the country and allow consumers to buy your shiat, then we're in a deflationary spiral. And the fact that little bits of the supposed American Dream--independence, sustainability, constant growth--are dying off, who really thinks America is going to last much longer in the way it is?

This is what austerity and corporate financial ideologies get us: wages are dead in the water and dropping, and everybody is scrambling to figure out how to deal with an outdated work ethic and resultant guilt combined with an economy that is just sinking. The real question is how many of us will continue to shoulder the blame for something we have no control over and still vote blindly. At this point, America is having one hell of a paradigm change that will result in something very different than the myths we tell ourselves.

etherknot:
"But after losing her job as an executive assistant at an advertising agency in 2008, she searched fruitlessly for full-time work."

While I feel a bit sad for this lady, isn't the purpose of advertising to sell something? You just spent the last four years doing what with your resume?

Probably sending it to any place that might possibly give her a job? I'm not sure what your point is here. There are no jobs, and the ones there are go to young people who will work long hours for peanuts and just be glad to have something.

The irony is of course that this lady would probably work long hours for peanuts (or more than that $1000 a month anyway) too... but the prevailing dogma is "don't hire old people".

You wanna good business idea? Tattoo removal clinic.

We're reaching the point where all those "non-conformists" who said that "they would never work for a company that didn't accept their tattoos" would very much like to work for those companies. Or any company, for that matter.

jso2897: moefuggenbrew: It's Bush's fault

Depends on which Bush you're talking about. Back in 1988, Bush Sr. said "I would like to see this nation's wealth in fewer, righter, tighter hands".
No one could reasonably contend that that has not been achieved.

Do you have a link to a 'reputable' source for that quote? I couldn't believe he said that, so I googled around, and the only sites that I got hits on were conspiracy / truther type sites.

stiletto_the_wise: FTA:

I read the article. You know, I almost felt sorry for her, but at this point, fark off. Us thirty-somethings are waiting around in crap entry-level jobs and can't get promoted because you damn Boomers think you're so "productive" that you won't bow out and retire most of you are whiny self-entitled wanna-bes who are not nearly as important as you think you are.

I ONLY consider +50 people for hiring. Why? I avoid the above tiresome crap when interviewing them.

Tillmaster: Whoever created the 401K idea should have been hung from the nearest lamp post.

Agreed!

Guntram Shatterhand: This is what austerity and corporate financial ideologies get us: wages are dead in the water and dropping, and everybody is scrambling to figure out how to deal with an outdated work ethic and resultant guilt combined with an economy that is just sinking. The real question is how many of us will continue to shoulder the blame for something we have no control over and still vote blindly. At this point, America is having one hell of a paradigm change that will result in something very different than the myths we tell ourselves.

From the article, this woman will live 23 years, during which she will receive $300,000 (current dollars) in Social Security benefits. I don't see how this works when an increasing share of whole generation is retiring at 62.

I strongly believe SS and Medicare are essential, but retirement may be one of those myths. The woman needs to do something productive. The government is paying her anyway, pay her to do something useful. If some bureaucrat can't think of something, I'll be glad to offer 40 job descriptions appropriate to her skills and that would make more sense than what is going on here. Don't call it Social Security, call it WPA or something.

BretMavrik: Fix education: When you break down the current unemployment numbers, there is a huge difference in the rates among educated and uneducated workers. The days of being able to get a good life-long job with an 8th-grade education are gone, and they're never coming back no matter what policies people might dream up.


You underestimate the power and reach of the United States's government and military. We just have to be willing to use it to save our country and ensure that no citizen shall endure a lifetime of drudgery for not having the capability to be a transnational egghead.

While education is quite important, it shall not be the sole arbiter of freedom or slavery in life.


We need to stop trying to compete on making goods where the only production variable left is labor costs, we're going to lose that battle every time. With a large pool of skilled workers from which to draw, we can compete and succeed making things others can't (at least not nearly as well). Our trade and other policies have put us in a bind; we should have been dumping a boatload of resources and attention into education since the 80s, when the writing was clearly on the wall

The mistake that you're making is that you used the handwave of "compete". With the large and diverse pool of legitimate citizens combined with a compliant and nonevasive private sector, the US can ensure freedom, opportunity, and the highest quality of life for any education level.


The American way of life is non-negotiable, where businesses ignore it at their inescapable, certain, and gruesome peril.

You followed the sexual revolution all the way to the trailer park, spouseless and childless.

You've come a long way, baby!

monstera: /taught

No, no, as a parent of two pre-teens, I believe you had it right the first time.

quickdraw: Hermione_Granger: Better times are ahead, I hope.

I think this is the first time Ive ever hugged someone on Fark. ((((HUGS))))

One foot in front of the other.

This. Sending good thoughts your way.

WhippingBoy: You wanna good business idea? Tattoo removal clinic.


The better solution is to take the ability to refuse out of the hands of business, where it damages the economy the most.

I've known a number of women like this. Middle-aged, single, moderate paying middle-management jobs. No real financial plan.
They spent most of their late 30's and 40's "living the good life". Two cruises every year, weekend trips to Vegas, etc.
I'm sorry, but I just don't feel sorry for them.

wambu: To save money, she has canceled the data plan on her BlackBerry

On Social Security and living in a trailer. Why does she need a Blackberry in the first place?

Because she probably doesn't have a landline. It's probably her only telephone. A Blackberry used to be a big deal luxury cool thing. Now it's just another phone, and not a particularly great one.

umad: The amount of sympathy for stupid people Boomers on this site is ridiculous.

was gonna say i fixed it for you...but instead i just repeated you

/fark the "Old Guard"
//they created this mess..let them now reap what the sowed

Delay:
I strongly believe SS and Medicare are essential, but retirement may be one of those myths. The woman needs to do something productive. The government is paying her anyway, pay her to do something useful. If some bureaucrat can't think of something, I'll be glad to offer 40 job descriptions appropriate to her skills and that would make more sense than what is going on here. Don't call it Social Security, call it WPA or something.

Then compel businesses to register themselves with such a program so that this lady can choose the direct-hire job with the best fit & compensation package as she sees fit. Any other arrangement results in failure bad enough to not warrant trying.

WhippingBoy: I've known a number of women like this. Middle-aged, single, moderate paying middle-management jobs. No real financial plan.
They spent most of their late 30's and 40's "living the good life". Two cruises every year, weekend trips to Vegas, etc.
I'm sorry, but I just don't feel sorry for them.

The problem is that it can happen to anyone without regard to history. Better to give the benefit of the doubt to her and end the economic sabotage by business.

/You see a turtle on its back
//But you are not helping
///Why?

attention span of a retarded fruit fly: So its above people that are over 60 to group together and get a house and help each other out? I am not moving out of my starter house and paying this off. Its not a bad size three bedrooms and that will keep my costs down. Also havingg kids at an older age helps as well. When im 60 my youngest will be 20 and we can pool together like they used to. I got the rooms and can cook and do your laundry. You pay some rent and come and go as you please. its time to go back to the ways that worked for years. Extended families are going to have to have a comeback

Works great until there is a clogged toilet

NewportBarGuy: It's going to be an interesting few decades, and by "interesting" I think we'll revisit the 70's my father told me about.

We have absolutely no idea how we're going to make this Service Economy as profitable as union wages were for several decades. Not even trying to make this a union thread, just saying. We've got to figure out how to create sustainable jobs that pay well and I've not heard anyone with any kind of realistic idea for doing so. Tax cuts and Green Jobs are nice buzz words, but we have a systemic employment problem and we're too scared to fully address the issue of people working longer, younger people having to wait longer to move in or up, and what the f*ck do we do with high school educated and college drop-out workers?

Technology and automation have relegated many of them to $7/hr jobs and that pay about the same as collecting any kind of state or federal assistance. Hell, even more if you deduct for child care or similar costs.

Look... We put our heads together when we needed to and developed the atom bomb and the Apollo program. If we put that same kind of effort, get our best labor economists, industrialists, bankers together for a NO BS honest assessment of where we are and where we need to go, we can fix this. Executive compensation is going to have to trickle back down to increase workers salaries so they can purchase more and spur hiring in the lower-tier jobs. We're going to have to do this with the cunning power of math. More people with a little more money creating more demand. That payroll tax cut is a great example, but we have to add more things to it, and offer more incentives to spur spending.

We have two choices. Government spending or consumer spending. We have to increase one or both. We can't cut and save our way out of a decline. Nor should we solely focus on government spending, especially with a yearly $1 trillion revenue shortfall.

We're all going to have to compromise on whatever strongly held principles we have on taxe ...

I think there are some good solutions out there, but they're pretty socialist

- increase minimum wage... a lot. Perhaps along the same lines as executive salary increases over the past 10 years.

- perhaps peg your dollar here and there to make buying foreign-made products more expensive and your exports cheaper (it's the Chinese way!)

I'm no economist, but these might help a bit, no?

"I'm not gonna kill you. I want you to do me a favor,
I want you to tell all your friends about me."
"What are you?"
"I'm BATMAN!"

I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it works
And if there's life after, we will see
So I can't go like a jerk

Systematic overthrow of the underclass
Hollywood conjures images of the past
New world needs spiritually
That will last
I've seen the future and it will be

I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it works
And if there's life after, we will see
So I can't go like a jerk

Yellow Smiley offers me X
Like he's drinking seven up
I would rather drink 6 razor blades
Razor blades from a paper cup
He can't understand, I say 2 tough
It's just that I've seen the future
And boy it's rough

I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it works
And if there's life after, we will see
So U can't go like a jerk
No, no

I've seen the future and it will be
Wait a minute

Pretty pony standing on the avenue
Flashin' a loaded pistol, 2 dumb 2 be true
Somebody told him playin' cops and robbers was cool
Would our rap have been different if we only knew?

I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it works
If there's life after, we will see
Don't go out like a jerk

Systematic overthrow of the underclass
Hollywood conjures images of the past
New world needs spiritually
That will last
I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it will be

I've seen the future and it will be

I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it will be

"Think about the future"

Koodz: Bontesla: We're in serious trouble.

Yeah, it's a shame that we may not get rewarded for our frugality with free money any more.

In a finite world there is going to be a day when the growth stops. When that happens all our growth-based economic tricks are going to break down.

I don't know if it's a 'finite world' in the sense you use that term, but I AM fairly convinced that the economic growth the West experienced over the second half of the twentieth century, and the set of expectations that sustained growth fostered, were anomalies that are unlikely in the extreme to replicate themselves anytime soon.

So what does that mean for future generations? Simple...you're going to have to do what people outside the fortunate few have had to do since time immemorial. You're going work all your life until you physically can't anymore. You're going to have to learn to live in multi-generational homes (touched on above somewhere) where several generations pitch in money, time and chores to make ends meet. You're going to have to live within your means, however modest they may turn out to be. You're going to have to save up a rainy-day fund to tide you over the inevitable bumps in the road.

Pissing and moaning about how the Boomers farked it all up for you is both pointless as well as wrong. Their lifestyles were no more sustainable than the housing bubble of the last decade, and they're in the same boat you are in.

So work for others when you must, but think like an East Indian merchant and start your own business to build something for yourself. Hoping and praying that some employer is going to look out for your future for the next half-century is a sure prescription for disappointment.

I was able to retire in my early 50's but bagged it after several years. I was miserable and had no sense of direction or purpose. So 6 years ago started a prototyping/light manufacturing business with my son. My wife and I provided the capital and immediate labor. Our son still works full-time in silicon valley management, but supplies ideas, contacts, intellectual capitol and hardware/software support. I work full time in the business, supervising our several employees, interfacing with customers and suppliers, and making sure all the other day to day operations get done. The business has no long-term debt and has grown 50% to 100+% a year purely from retained earnings.

Our son plans to 'retire' in another 5-10 years from corporate life to take over the business. That gives him time to save up money for the transition and get his ducks in a row (he's on track for 5 years). If his plans change I have my oldest grandson to fall back on, as he will be out of college and ready to join the firm if he wishes to. If all that falls through I will just sell or close up shop when I can't do it any more.

To hell with sitting around watching TV and waiting to die.

IIT: more generational whining from haters too weak to compete. If Boomers retire you're pissed about Social Security, if they work you cry they're in the way of an entitled free gig.
Consider the problem might be you, generations who gave up creating industry for a gold star free ride. If you can't show enough value to displace a despised Boomer, who's the real loser?

At some point, the Elites are going to realize this is unsustainable and will come up with a rationalized worldwide population reduction. It will be couched in some form of public safety directive and will begin by removing the scapegoats already sponging off the system. When they run out of those, then they will find the next most despised group and so on...

Yes, it DOES sound like it has been done before. I fully expect it to happen again in the next twenty years.

sethstorm: WhippingBoy: I've known a number of women like this. Middle-aged, single, moderate paying middle-management jobs. No real financial plan.
They spent most of their late 30's and 40's "living the good life". Two cruises every year, weekend trips to Vegas, etc.
I'm sorry, but I just don't feel sorry for them.

The problem is that it can happen to anyone without regard to history. Better to give the benefit of the doubt to her and end the economic sabotage by business.

/You see a turtle on its back
//But you are not helping
///Why?

In a field one summer's day a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. A group of ants walked by, grunting as they struggled to carry plump kernels of corn.

"Where are you going with those heavy things?" asked the grasshopper.

Without stopping, the first ant replied, "To our ant hill. This is the third kernel I've delivered today."

"Why not come and sing with me," teased the grasshopper, "instead of working so hard?"

"We are helping to store food for the winter," said the ant, "and think you should do the same."

"Winter is far away and it is a glorious day to play," sang the grasshopper.

But the ants went on their way and continued their hard work.

The weather soon turned cold. All the food lying in the field was covered with a thick white blanket of snow that even the grasshopper could not dig through. Soon the grasshopper found itself dying of hunger.

He staggered to the ants' hill and saw them handing out corn from the stores they had collected in the summer. He begged them for something to eat.

"What!" cried the ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"

"I didn't have time to store any food," complained the grasshopper; "I was so busy playing music that before I knew it the summer was gone."

The ants shook their heads in disgust, turned their backs on the grasshopper and went on with their work.

As much as I hate to introduce facts into what should be a purely emotional and ideological dispute, there is no empirical economic evidence that early retirement of old people frees up jobs for young people.

/ The woman in the article doesn't have a job.
// So she isn't spending much money.
/// So she isn't creating any jobs for younger people.